From the cover: “Chinese Pottery and Porcelain is a comprehensive survey of the development of ceramics from the Neolithic period to the present day. Assessing the roles pottery has played in each dynasty throughout the history of China, the author also discusses its enormous impact on the ceramic industries of the rest of the world, where Chinese porcelain has been admired and collected for centuries.

From the earliest earthenwares to the exotic burial figures of the Tang, from the classic forms and subtle glazes of the Song to the famous porcelains created especially for export or imperial tastes, the book draws upon the extensive collections of the British Museum for lavish illustration.

From the cover: “Collecting is a passion that can become a way of life. The lure of the chase, the search for the elusive treasure, the fascination of knowing almost, but not quite, everything about some out-of-the-ordinary subject are what makes a collector’s adrenalin surge.

Collectors thrive most of all on the teasing certainty that fortunes can be made out of their hobbies and that around the next corner they could find the one thing that will make their collection complete and unique.

This book contains the stories of many fascinating and successful collectors. They are men and women of all ages and from all walks of life who have been bitten by the collecting bug. Their specialities range from old bank notes to cigarette lighters, from dolls to picture postcards.

From their own experience they give first hand tips on collecting including how to start, where to go and, most interesting of all for the would be collector, what to start specialising in now so that your hobby can be turned into money. The astute collector picks an area of the market that is unexploited and develops it. Two young men who tell their collecting story in the book introduced the words ‘street jewellery’ to the Oxford English Dictionary because that was what they called the enamel signs, manhole covers and street direction boards which they began to collect only a few years ago. Street jewellery is now a large and thriving area for other collectors.

Everything and anything can be collected from 18th century prints to today’s throwaway beer cans. In this book you learn how to build up your collection and also how to add an unexpected pleasure to your life for collecting can not only be a cure for boredom and the blues but it carries with it the very real possibility of turning a modest outlay of money into a considerable nest egg.